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Critical Appraisal of Classification Criteria for Vasculitides

  • VASCULITIS (LR ESPINOZA, SECTION EDITOR)
  • Published:
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Abstract

The vasculitides are a group of protean diseases, some of which are caused by conditions including infections, other autoimmune diseases, or neoplasias. They are a challenge to the clinician, in terms of both diagnosis and therapy. No diagnostic criteria exist, although a multinational effort to develop them is in progress. However, many classification criteria have been proposed, and these have served as diagnostic surrogates and have made it possible to discriminate between many, although not all, of the vasculitides, mainly for epidemiological and therapeutic trial design purposes. In this review we recognise the difficulties of defining such criteria, but at the same time attempt to provide a critical overview of efforts to do so. The increasing knowledge regarding many of these diseases makes us confident that the time will come when their aetiology, or at least their main pathogenic features, is known, rendering proposed classification criteria obsolete.

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Conflict of Interest

Luis Felipe Flores-Suárez and Felipe de J. Contreras-Rodríguez declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Primary Systemic Vasculitides Clinic, Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Calzada de Tlalpan 4502, Col. Sección XVI, Tlalpan, Mexico City, Mexico

    Luis Felipe Flores-Suárez

  2. Pneumology Department, Hospital General Regional 180, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Jalisco, Mexico

    Felipe de J. Contreras-Rodríguez

Authors
  1. Luis Felipe Flores-Suárez
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  2. Felipe de J. Contreras-Rodríguez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luis Felipe Flores-Suárez.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Vasculitis

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Flores-Suárez, L.F., J. Contreras-Rodríguez, F. Critical Appraisal of Classification Criteria for Vasculitides. Curr Rheumatol Rep 16, 422 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11926-014-0422-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11926-014-0422-y

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